University of Louisville

Founding and early years: 1798–1845 Criminal Justice Building The University of Louisville traces its roots to a charter granted in 1798 by the Kentucky General Assembly to establish a school of higher learning in the newly founded town of Louisville. It ordered the sale of 6,000 acres (24 km 2 ) of South Central Kentucky land to underwrite construction, joined on April 3, 1798, by eight community leaders who began local fundraising for what was then known as the Jefferson Seminary. It opened 15 years later and offered college and high school level courses in a variety of subjects. It was headed by Edward Mann Butler from 1813 to 1816, who later ran the first public school in Kentucky in 1829 and is considered Kentucky's first historian. [ 15 ] [ 16 ] Despite the Jefferson Seminary's early success, pressure from newly established public schools and media critiques of it as "elitist" would force its closure in 1829. [ 16 ] Eight years later, in 1837, the Louisville city council established the Louisville Medical Institute at the urging of renowned physician and medical author Charles Caldwell . As he had earlier at Lexington's Transylvania University , Caldwell rapidly led LMI into becoming one of the leading medical schools in what was then considered the western US. [ 17 ] In 1840, Louisville College, a sibling municipal liberal arts school chartered a few years earlier as the Louisville Collegiate Institute, was established. As LMI fared better financially than the college, political efforts ensued to either have LMI pool their resources with the college or have the college take administrative control of LMI, with no success. In 1844 the college inherited land from Jefferson Seminary intended for higher education use, but this did not enhance its financial position. [ 18 ] [ 19 ] The University of Louisville School of Medicine opened in 1837.

This section needs additional citations for verification . ( August 2015 ) The university has three campuses in the Louisville area, the Belknap, the Health Science, and the Shelby. It also has an International Campus in Panama City , Panama , as well as various satellite facilities in the state of Kentucky and abroad: Belknap Campus Completed in 2001, Cardinal Park is home to five Cardinal athletic teams. Acquired in 1923, the Belknap Campus is the school's main campus. It is located three miles (5 km) south of downtown Louisville in the Old Louisville neighborhood. It houses seven of the 12 academic colleges and features one of the casts of Auguste Rodin 's The Thinker in front of the main administrative building, Grawemeyer Hall. The grounds of the campus were originally used as an orphanage, with several of the original buildings used. [ 40 ] The Belknap Campus has expanded greatly in recent years, with land housing abandoned factories in the area being purchased and redeveloped. Projects built since 1998 include L&N Federal Credit Union Stadium and adjacent Trager Center fieldhouse, Owsley B. Frazier Cardinal Park (which includes Ulmer Stadium for softball, Trager Stadium for field hockey, Cardinal Track and Soccer Stadium, Bass-Rudd Tennis Center, locker rooms, a playground and a cushioned walking path), Jim Patterson Stadium for baseball, Ralph R. Wright Natatorium, Owsley Brown Frazier Sports Medicine Center, and a lacrosse stadium. With new parking at Cardinal Stadium, non-resident parking was moved there and the parking lots near campus were redeveloped with new dormitory buildings, including the Bettie Johnson Apartments, [ 41 ] Kurz Hall, Minardi Hall, and Community Park. [ 42 ] The Quad on the Belknap Campus Other points of interest on the Belknap Campus include the Rauch Planetarium; [ 43 ] the Covi Gallery of the Hite Art Institute, named for the painter Marcia Hite and her husband Allen; [ 44 ] and the final resting place for former U.S.

Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis and his wife Alice, under the portico in the Brandeis Law School. [ 45 ] Surrounded by, but not part of the campus, is the Speed Art Museum , a private institution that is affiliated with the University of Louisville. The Kentucky State Data Center , the state's official clearing house for census data and estimates, is located next to Bettie Johnson Hall. [ citation needed ] Since 2008 the school has purchased three large tracts of land adjacent to the Belknap Campus, 55 acres (220,000 m 2 ) to the school's northwest campus, 17 acres (69,000 m 2 ) to the school's east campus – south of Hahn and 39 acres (160,000 m 2 ) south of the Speed School of Engineering. New student housing has been completed on one of the northwest segments with student parking slated for the other. A new engineering and applied sciences research park is planned for the land south of the Speed School of Engineering. It serves as the centerpiece of a Signature Tax Increment Financing (TIF) district, designed to stimulate economic growth in an area around the university's Belknap campus. The TIF district covers more than 900 acres stretching from Belknap Campus south to the Watterson Expressway. The Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority recently approved the TIF, paving the way for what could be an estimated $2.6 billion over 30 years. [ citation needed ] Student Activities Center and Clock Tower Belknap Campus from the Eastern Parkway overpass Rauch Planetarium Lutz Hall is home to the departments of Sociology, Art History, Geography, Anthropology, and Engineering. Shumaker Research Building and Belknap Academic Building as seen from Lutz Hall Belknap Campus development projects Construction for 2,000 new student housing units on Shipp Avenue in July 2008 In 2009, the university unveiled its new master plan for the next 20 years with efforts from the University of Louisville Foundation and other affiliate partners.

Several important projects under construction or planned at that time included a new student recreation center, soccer stadium, new residence halls and academic buildings. Furthermore, the reconstruction of the I-65 ramps to the Belknap Campus, converting the four lanes of Eastern Parkway into a two-lane road with bike lanes and a landscaped median to improve pedestrian access to the Speed School , the moving of several university offices to allow the existing facilities at Arthur Street and Brandeis Avenue to be converted to commercial property and restaurants. The KFC Yum! Center (a men's basketball and volleyball practice facility) was completed in the fall of 2007. A 12,000-square-foot (1,100 m 2 ) Olympic sports training/rehab center adjacent to Trager Stadium is under construction. Trager Plaza, a small plaza with a fountain, statue, and garden has been built with donations by the Trager Family on the south part of campus. The $37.5 million Student Recreation Center, located on the Fourth Street corridor along the western border of campus, opened in October 2013. The Province, The Bellamy and Cardinal Towne are three new student housing developments built to the southwest of campus, near the recreation center. All three were built by private developers, and The Province was built in tandem with Louisville's properties. In the short term, university provost Shirley Willihnganz expects the university to continue partnerships with private entities to build student housing. Reconstruction of the Oval at 3rd Street in July 2008 Several athletic facilities are being renovated, and the new $8 million academic center will be located beneath the Norton Terrace at the south end of Cardinal Stadium. It will be centrally located between two of the university's cornerstone buildings, the Swain Student Activities Center and Cardinal Stadium.